betray a confusion about the nature of judicial greatness. In some places Feldman criticizes the justices for failing to advance liberal political goals (great=liberal); in other places he criticizes them for making up the law to suit their political preferences (great=impartial). Feldman is hardly alone in this respect: this is a central failing of constitutional law scholarship. All that is clear is that the justices’ disagreements shaped constitutional debate for decades (thanks in part to a cadre of worshipful judicial clerks who later became professors). Whether for good or for ill, is hard to say.

David J. Garrow reviews JUSTICE BRENNAN: Liberal Champion by Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel in the Washington Post. Garrow concludes: "Scrupulously honest and consistently fair-minded, "Justice Brennan" is a supremely impressive work that will long be prized as perhaps the best judicial biography ever written."

Jones and Meyer make a good case that Bellamy’s original pledge was more elegant and rhythmic than today’s clause-laden version. They are less effective in explaining how the former “Youth’s Companion Pledge of Allegiance” evolved from a vaguely progressive one-off promotional spot into a mandatory childhood rite of passage and a political weapon....As a result, the book reads more like an amateur hobbyist’s guide to pledge-related happenings than a fully realized history of American patriotism and national identity.